Eighty Two Letters
by LukeAndLorelai Brucas Fan
Summary: "I didn't call; I never sent you any postcards. But that doesn't mean I didn't think about you. I could only think of you and how badly I'd handled things. There are eighty-two letters in here, and they're all addressed to you. I wrote them all this summer. One a day. This was how I spent my summer Jess," Literati, season three.


Ok, let's try this again. This is just something short and a little silly that I wrote a couple of years ago after rewatching certain episodes of GG and OTH, you'll know the ones surely. Hopefully I've put enough extra stuff in so that it's not just me ripping off Brooke's speech, let me know, will you? There you go Addie, something new and Gilmore from me! Just for you. Enjoy.

* * *

_That stupid little..._ Rory wouldn't let herself finish the thought, as she stomped into her bedroom and threw the closet door wide. _Who does he think he is? Talking to me like that?_ Reaching into the very back of her closet, she found the box she'd stashed there a few days earlier – the first thing she'd put away after returning from Washington so that no one, her mother especially, could find it and question her. Because of course she didn't have any answers and even if she had it still would have been a difficult conversation.

Dumping the contents of the box on her bed, Rory looked down at the many envelopes she had filled while away from home. Each one was addressed carefully, with a date in the corner as well. She'd been cautious, writing out the address, to make sure there were no mistakes, no chance of the postal service messing up and delivering to someone else.

Not that she would have ever been able to send any of them.

Her summer had been a busy one, also a little exhausting (what with, having to share a room with Paris) and most days she had been able to keep her mind on what she was supposed to be thinking about. But when it came to the night, she'd had trouble. In the quiet of her hotel room, the silence only broken by Paris's outbursts in her dreams, Rory hadn't been able to stop herself from thinking of the boy she'd left behind.

Just not the one she should have been thinking of.

Dean was great. The best first boyfriend anyone could ask for. Despite that, Rory had spent most of the time she'd been in her nation's capitol, thinking of Jess. Where was he? What was he doing? Did he think about her too?

She got her answer when she arrived back in town, but she wished she hadn't. He'd been making out with a blonde in too-tight jeans right in the centre of town, which she was sure would be giving Taylor Doosee palpitations as soon as he noticed, but all it did for Rory was to make her mad.

_Who is she? Where did he meet her? What does he think he's doing? _She'd thought to herself as her mother, right by her side bickered with Taylor about something that she hadn't heard a word of – the only sound she'd heard since clapping eyes on the busy pair by the tree was a loud rushing in her ears. Everything else disappeared, leaving only them. Him. Doing _that._

_He moved on,_ some rational part of her mind answered. _Did you really think he would wait around? Didn't you see this coming?_

_No. I didn't._

Looking down at all the envelopes, Rory thought back on the comments that had put her in this mood._ I'm sorry, did I hear from you at all this summer?_ He had asked, following her through the market. _Did I just happen to miss the thousands of phone calls you made to me, or did the postman happen to lose all those letters you wrote to me?_ _You kiss me, you tell me not to say anything...very flattering, by the way. You go off to Washington… then nothing._

_ I was stupid._ She conceded, shoving the letters back in the box haphazardly before calling out a lie to her mother and walking as fast as she could to the diner.

Jess was inside, wiping down tables, but from what she could see, Luke was nowhere around. _Thank God!_ She thought, knocking furiously on the glass pane in the door. Jess looked up and stared at her through the door for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to start round two, before dropping the rag onto the table and moving about halfway through the room. He stopped again, still looking at her, and Rory was beginning to feel like this was by far the stupidest thing she had ever done, but then the door was open and he was staring at her in a way that seemed to penetrate her soul and before she knew it she was talking.

"I didn't call; I never sent you any postcards. I haven't mastered smoke signals just yet, and for the life of me I can't remember the number for Harry and David. But that doesn't mean I didn't think about you. Every day that I was in DC, I was supposed to be thinking about politics, and student government, and Dean, and learning things. I did ok most of the time, other times I wasn't so bad at faking, but there were those moments were I slipped up. I thought of you. I could only think of you and how badly I'd handled things. I spent… more time than I want to admit wishing I'd done things some way that wasn't nearly as stupid as the way that they actually played out. I am still with Dean, but that's only because I haven't worked out a way to tell him that it's over yet," Rory paused to take a breath and lifted the shoe box almost like a peace offering. "There are eighty-two letters in here, and they're all addressed to you. I wrote them all this summer. One a day," she explained, shoving it into Jess' hands. "I was an idiot, and if you hate me because of that, then I understand, but I just thought that you should know. This was how I spent my summer Jess," she turned and walked away, racing along the street back home.

* * *

_What the hell?_ Jess looked at the box in his hands as Rory disappeared around the corner. There were a whole lot of letters, all with his name on them. _…eighty-two…_ he thought, flipping through them.

Sitting at the closest table he pulled a handful out and inspected them closer. Each envelope had a date written on it; by the looks of things Rory really had written one each day. Sifting through to find the first, Jess sat back and began to read. It began with an apology.

When he finished the second he pushed the box away and crossed the room to fetch the coffee pot, then returned to the table and searched for the third.

He had a lot of reading to do.

* * *

The next morning Rory stood at her vanity table, brushing her hair when she heard a tapping at her window. She hadn't slept well the night before, that whole situation with Jess and Dean weighing too heavily on her mind to allow her to get any real rest.

Putting her brush down, she turned to see Jess, waiting on the other side of the glass.

Chewing her lip, she crossed the room, unlatched the window and pushed out. Wordlessly, Jess climbed inside and they stared at one another.

"What exactly does this mean?" he asked after a moment, holding the box she'd left with him the night before.

"I… All I know is that Dean and I don't fit, maybe we never did, but, in any case, we definitely don't now."

"But you think..?"

"I don't know what I think anymore. I just wish… I want to feel the way that I used to when we spent time together, before you left and things got so screwed up."

"So, does that mean you're going to talk to Dean today?"

"Yep," Rory nodded, "I thought about it all night, and I know he's going to be so mad at me, I don't want to hurt him, but I know I have to do this now."

"There's something I have to go do then. Can you call me after?"

"Ok,"

Jess started for the window, but then stopped and turned back to face Rory. Silently he returned to stand before her and cupped her face in his palm. For a few moments their lips met in a soft, chaste kiss and then, Jess backed up, climbed out the window and moved off to carry out the business he needed to attend to.


End file.
